Gaining the Whole World, Forfeiting a Life

While stalking one of our rival guild’s websites, I ran across a link for a series of blog posts that I hadn’t seen anywhere else. Admittedly, I’m not the best blogger out there at keeping his/her/its finger on the pulse of Game Blogger Nation, but I’m surprised I didn’t run across it before. Anyways, it’s a brief series from guest authors about World of Warcraft and the costs/benefits of hardcore raiding on the players. The View from the Top, written by a former guildleader of a raiding guild who walked away from it all and tells his tale. There’s a followup, The View from the Top: Redux, which clarifies authorship of the first article and highlights some of the comments it generated. The final in the series, Warcraft: Another Point of View, is written by another guest author who is still a hardcore raider and disputes any implied responsibility of the game itself. Other than some jackholes going wild in the comments, the short series is a balanced, civilized discussion of MMO raiding and its toll — the blog owners should be proud, it’s fine work. Listen to the bell, raider, it tolls for thee.

To Ding or Not to Ding

Feran level 13 paladin of the Warcraft realm, Scilla, doesn’t care if you ding, he just wants you to do it quietly. Quoting from the forum thread, “People who say ‘Ding'”: “… I understand that saying “ding” has been passed down from previous MMORPG’s. But really, do people crave that much attention that they have to let the whole world know every time they level. I’m sorry but the fact that you leveled is nothing special, it’s happening to everyone. …” Ya, ya, low levels shouting “Ding!” in a public channel is stupid, but I’m more inclined to agree with Reply #11 by Ravenhurst (level 60 hunter of Shattered Hand): “Ding is a goddamn tradition. If you don’t like it then get the hell out of my genre before you get trained by Fansy.” Tradition! Don’t mess with it, noob! And with the level cap rising to 70 in a few months, there’s gonna be a whole lot of dinging going on. (Archive of WoW Forum – People who say Ding, page 1)

The Warcraft Auction House Database

The World of Warcraft Auction House Database, a browsable, searchable database of each realm’s auction house listings, updated every two hours. Although I love the idea, and certainly wonder how such a thing is possible, I can’t imagine many scenarios in which this is a must-have. I guess you could be at work and are hot to get a Glowing Brightwood Staff, so you watch the database listings, but then what? You race home to log on and bid? Or, you log on at work and have your coworker bud stand lookout for the boss while you camp the auction? Maybe you’re working Auction Houses across several realms and it’s easier to check the database than logging/relogging several characters? I’m not seeing it. Unless … unless the database can mine data and give us some meaningful stats, then I’m on board for this.